Dr. K.K. Pandey
These days, as the health awareness is setting in, people are getting more concerned about blue-coloured spider like veins which have recently appeared in their legs. More we are adapting a comfortable, luxurious and sedentary life style, more our legs are falling victim to onslaught of varicose veins. In the initial stage, we naturally try to ignore them, but when the problem becomes enormous; we jump the gun and without giving any proper thought, start consulting doctors in all and sundry. Ultimately, we end up receiving totally multiple divergent medical advices and get really confused. Unfortunately, this kind of injudicious treatment leads to blackening and non healing ulcer of leg in the end.
Who are the victims of varicose veins?
Ladies and shopkeepers are the most vulnerable to risk of developing varicose veins. Computer
Professionals, office clerks, receptionists working in multi star hotels and big show rooms fall easy prey to an onslaught of varicose veins. Traffic policemen, police control room personnel, junior level police officers involved with FIR registration and preparation of court cases at police stations,
scientists and technologists working in laboratories are perfect host to varicose veins of leg. Our judiciary and legal fraternity is not far away from developing varicose veins. Our teacher community and call centre professionals are more susceptible to developing varicosity of leg. In other words, whosoever bids farewell to a regular habit of daily morning walk and adopts wittingly or unwittingly a profession where a prolonged sitting for hours is mandatory, will develop sooner or later severe varicose veins of leg with associated complications.
How to identify varicose veins?
Carefully observe your legs and feet. If you find earthworm or spider -like blue-coloured thin veins in your leg skin or you notice black spots or areas on your leg especially in lower parts, believe me you have already developed varicose veins. If you develop leg swelling or pain after a moderate walk, you have started inching certainly towards developing varicose veins. If after a long walk you observe light red patches and prominent blue-coloured veins, you undoubtedly have laid the foundation for varicose veins.
Why do varicose veins occur?
If you are habitual of a cozy and sedentary life style, you are not far away from developing varicose veins. For example, if you go for a bath and in the bathroom both the tap that supply pure water and the drainage pipe are working smoothly, the bather will not find any problem because after using pure water for bath, the soap-mixed used water thus collected will keep going out through drain pipe . On the contrary, imagine a situation where drainage pipe of your bath room gets narrowed or blocked or under functioning due to any reason, this will result into stagnation of soap-mixed dirty water inside the bathroom. Finally, this impure water will try to find a way out of bath room. Either it will start oozing from the wall itself or will go out through holes in the door or it will raise its water level to go out through the windows of bath room.
In the same way imagine your leg in place of bath room. Your leg is getting uninterrupted pure blood supply through arteries just like a tap in the bathroom. This pure blood is a sole supplier of oxygen that is consumed during walking. After leg muscles have used the oxygen, the blood in the leg becomes impure due to depleted oxygen content. This blood now needs replenishment with oxygen in order to re- circulate and then re- supply oxygen to leg. For replenishment with oxygen, this stagnated impure blood now must leave the leg and reach the lung through the heart. After purification of blood in the lung, this oxygen- enriched blood will come back again into circulation through heart and again enter the leg through arteries.
If due to any reason, this impure blood pooled inside the leg does not ascends up and thus fail to reach the lung, it will keep on collecting inside the leg and start filling otherwise collapsed veins underneath the skin. When these superficial veins start dilating due to abnormal filling of blood, they will become visible on the skin like a spider. This is the beginning of varicose veins.
Where to go, if you have varicose veins?
If you think you have varicose veins in your leg, please do not sit idle and be prompt in consulting a Vascular Surgeon. In our country, it has been observed a patient of varicose veins generally due to ignorance either goes to a skin specialist or a bone specialist. Sometimes these patients go to a quack or a massager for treatment. They get alarmed, when they develop a non healing ulcer in their leg. Even then, some of them keep getting regular dressings at nearby clinics with no result. Therefore always remember only an experienced vascular surgeon can advise you a correct treatment of varicose veins.
What is the correct treatment of varicose veins?
In the early stage of development of varicose veins, neither surgery nor laser nor RFA treatment is required. What requires of a patient is a drastic change in his daily life style. One has to walk regularly in a nearby park for at least two hours in a day including morning and evening (one hour each). One has to avoid prolonged (not more than one hour) sitting on the chair and prolonged standing. One must reduce extra weight. One has to wear scientifically made specialized graduated compression stockings while walking. A patient of varicose veins has to keep in touch with a vascular surgeon every two month.
If you already have fully- developed varicose veins in legs or you have black spots or black areas or you have persistent leg swelling with redness or you have developed leg ulcers– in any of such conditions, you will require either conventional surgery or endo venous laser or radiofrequency ablation technique. For the effective treatment of varicose veins, one should go to a hospital where there is a department of vascular surgery as well as availability of facility for all these different treatments.
(The author is a Senior Consultant in the Department of Cardiothoracic & Vascular Surgery at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi India.)
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